Officially Expats
We have been here for a month and with our own bank accounts and work visas we are now expats! When we are out and about around Chiang Mai we can tell people we live here and lose the tourist label. But if we are to go anywhere outside Chiang Mai we are back to tourists :)
It has been 4 weeks of school and we are starting to get in the groove of teaching and knowing more about the kids. What we've realized is kids are the same everywhere. We have students that lose papers, don't do their homework with the same excuses of "I forgot we had homework", "I lost it", or my favorite "I did it !...but I left it at home." We've been coaching the boys soccer team and they complain about running, have a new injury each week, or can't come to practice for the normal reasons. We are starting to learn how to the students came to our school and why they chose this school. Some students move every couple years because of their parents jobs, or they want to get better access to certain colleges. I am still amazed these students know more than one language and even though their English isn't amazing - its better than our nearly non-existent Thai, or even our slightly less than conversational Spanish. In the classroom, we are still trying to figure out if when we speak: the students understand us, they understand us and don't know how to respond in English, or they really have no idea what were talking about. We're learning, they're learning, and we hope we are all becoming better teachers and students!
This past week we had the school's "Wai Khru" which is a Thai ceremony that pays respect to teachers. All of the staff and teachers wear traditional Thai clothing and the students "Wai" the teachers in appreciation and the teachers give words of inspiration and well wishes to the students for a successful school year. The ceremony started by introducing the school's administrators. Then all of the secondary teachers went on stage and waited for the students. The students lined up and walked across the stage so that they were kneeling in front of one of the teachers. Next, the elementary teachers went on stage and the elementary students did the same as the secondary students. It's funny because you don't know what students you will match up with and sometimes you will get a student you don't know. In Ben's case, one of the students was trying to line himself up to get the teacher next to Ben and when it came down to kneeling in front of the teacher, the kid ended up with Ben and let out a "OHHHH MAN" and we caught it on camera!
The next weekend Ben and I stayed in a part of Chiang Mai where the expats live and go out - Nimman. We rented a motor bike and explored the shops and Maya Mall. At Maya Mall we ate a place called "Dukes" where they serve steaks, pizzas, ribs, etc. all really good american dishes! Ben has not stopped talking it about it since. We had a great view of the city as it started raining. We decided not drive around while it was raining, and looked into the movie theater on the 4th floor of the mall. They had Thai movies, Alice Through the Looking Glass, Pete's Dragon, and Suicide Squad. We didn't watch anything because we had other plans, but we're excited to go back and see what it's like. We've heard its really nice reclining chairs, weird tasting popcorn, and subtitles are in Thai at the bottom. After the mall, I went and got a massage while Ben went back to the hotel and napped. That night we met up with some other teachers and watched a soccer game at the Chiang Mai Saloon in Old Town. That night, we were walking back to our hotel and Ben saw a Mexican food truck (that I thought looked gross) but ended up getting a Burrito that was THE BEST burrito I have ever had. SO good that when we got back to the hotel and ate it, Ben went back our to the truck to get another one for us to share. We will find that truck again!
It has been 4 weeks of school and we are starting to get in the groove of teaching and knowing more about the kids. What we've realized is kids are the same everywhere. We have students that lose papers, don't do their homework with the same excuses of "I forgot we had homework", "I lost it", or my favorite "I did it !...but I left it at home." We've been coaching the boys soccer team and they complain about running, have a new injury each week, or can't come to practice for the normal reasons. We are starting to learn how to the students came to our school and why they chose this school. Some students move every couple years because of their parents jobs, or they want to get better access to certain colleges. I am still amazed these students know more than one language and even though their English isn't amazing - its better than our nearly non-existent Thai, or even our slightly less than conversational Spanish. In the classroom, we are still trying to figure out if when we speak: the students understand us, they understand us and don't know how to respond in English, or they really have no idea what were talking about. We're learning, they're learning, and we hope we are all becoming better teachers and students!
This past week we had the school's "Wai Khru" which is a Thai ceremony that pays respect to teachers. All of the staff and teachers wear traditional Thai clothing and the students "Wai" the teachers in appreciation and the teachers give words of inspiration and well wishes to the students for a successful school year. The ceremony started by introducing the school's administrators. Then all of the secondary teachers went on stage and waited for the students. The students lined up and walked across the stage so that they were kneeling in front of one of the teachers. Next, the elementary teachers went on stage and the elementary students did the same as the secondary students. It's funny because you don't know what students you will match up with and sometimes you will get a student you don't know. In Ben's case, one of the students was trying to line himself up to get the teacher next to Ben and when it came down to kneeling in front of the teacher, the kid ended up with Ben and let out a "OHHHH MAN" and we caught it on camera!
As we've said before, our school is an International Baccalaureate (IB) school participating in the Primary Years (PYP) and Middle Years Programs (MYP). Its a rigorous curriculum that teaches students the usual subject you would see in a school, but with a much higher focus on integration of topics and allowing the students to discover on their own. The aim of the IB is to teach students skills to make them successful in the world today. To do this, teachers have to create unit plans that bring our subjects into the real world. We are still learning about this curriculum, and Ben is really loving this way of teaching while I am missing my Virginia SOL comfort zone (never thought I would say that!). Ben's classes have units on creating fitness circuits, using technology to improve swimming performance, and sport specific units that focus on communication and tactics. I am going to a conference in Bangkok next weekend to get more training on this curriculum so I hope to become more confident in this teaching approach. We're lucky our school has a great MYP Coordinator that helps us every step of the way. He is very supportive and reassures us that we will get better - so I can't say I'm stressed about it - just determined to get a better understanding of this curriculum.
We had our first soccer game this past week! Ben and I have half of the boys in our classes so its been fun to get to know them out of the classroom. We only practice three days a week for an hour so I was a little nervous how conditioned they would be for a game. This was Ben's first time coaching soccer and I was impressed how well he did ;) I must say, we make a great team coaching together. I make the line up, make the substitutions and run practice while Ben trains the goalies, coaches the boys when they sub in and out (deals with the hot heads), and makes sure the administrative tasks are taken care of. We played against Grace International School - a christian non profit school where the teachers are missionaries. This school is 600 plus students, the largest school in our conference. When we arrived on the beautiful field facility, it felt like we were back in America. Most of their students are Americans and the coach of the team we played against was from Roanoke - which is near our hometown - what a small world! The whole game we were leading by two goals. However, in the stoppage time the other team was able to score two goals and we ended in a draw 5-5. We only play each team once in regular season, but will most likely see them again at a conference tournament in November.
The last two weekends we spent in town - one was a girls weekend. Chiang Mai has a ton of restaurants that serve amazing food! We started at a roof top bar, went to a real red brick oven pizza kitchen for dinner, and ended the night at Zoey's. Zoey's is the tourists bar/club area where all of the back packers and other Farang's (what Thai's call foreigners) go out. There is no shortage of elephant pants or dreadlocks around there.
The next weekend Ben and I stayed in a part of Chiang Mai where the expats live and go out - Nimman. We rented a motor bike and explored the shops and Maya Mall. At Maya Mall we ate a place called "Dukes" where they serve steaks, pizzas, ribs, etc. all really good american dishes! Ben has not stopped talking it about it since. We had a great view of the city as it started raining. We decided not drive around while it was raining, and looked into the movie theater on the 4th floor of the mall. They had Thai movies, Alice Through the Looking Glass, Pete's Dragon, and Suicide Squad. We didn't watch anything because we had other plans, but we're excited to go back and see what it's like. We've heard its really nice reclining chairs, weird tasting popcorn, and subtitles are in Thai at the bottom. After the mall, I went and got a massage while Ben went back to the hotel and napped. That night we met up with some other teachers and watched a soccer game at the Chiang Mai Saloon in Old Town. That night, we were walking back to our hotel and Ben saw a Mexican food truck (that I thought looked gross) but ended up getting a Burrito that was THE BEST burrito I have ever had. SO good that when we got back to the hotel and ate it, Ben went back our to the truck to get another one for us to share. We will find that truck again!
This past Sunday we went to a mall area called "Kad Farang" which were outlet malls. Lots of different shops such as Dunkin Donuts, Starbucks, McDonalds, Nike, Puma, Ed Hardy and other Thai equivalents of American stores. That night we ate a Mexican restaurant and had GREAT salsa and dinner. This restaurant was conveniently located at the bottom of our hill! As you can see in our last picture - we want to see the elephants soon- (Real ones of course)! There are a lot of elephant camps in Chiang Mai - one camp is about a 20 minute walk from our school - maybe when our first friends come we will take them there!
Hope everyone at home had a great Labor Day weekend! The swimming pool at our school is almost done being renovated and Ben will start his swimming Unit. I'm sure we will have fun stories to tell! Thanks for checking in :)
